To promote the release of their new compilation album, Orbital headlined the outdoor stage at Alexandra Palace performing new mixes of tracks from the release. The Hartnoll brothers stood on top of a platform surrounded by screens displaying stunning visuals throughout the set.
They began on the first song on new album ‘30 Something’ with new single ‘Smiley’; based on the Acid house party raves of the early ‘90s, where police brutally raided the secret gatherings taking place around the M25 which gave birth to the band’s name.
The pair then played ‘There Will Come A Time (We Will Die Remix)’, from their ‘Monsters Exist’ album, narrated by Professor Brian Cox – a pyrotechnic display in electronic sound and also a stark warning of the impending extinction of humanity though planetary destruction.
This environmental theme continued in more ‘30 Something Years Later’ mixes – the urgent countdown of ‘Impact (The Earth Is Still Burning 30 Years Later Mix)’, before they performed the relentless mechanical march of single ‘Satan’; both tracks included still periods of synth reflection.
Orbital continued the new album mixes with the cyclical ‘Halcyon + On + On’ and dizzying heights of ‘Belfast’, both with female vocals and the latter with sirenic opera, grinding to a halt before they performed the techno beats of ‘Chime’. They finished their set on the climax of ‘Where Is It All Going?’, with drilling pyrotechnics, a version of which also appears on the new album ft. Professor Stephen Hawking, returning the set to the common message of their work.
23/07/22: Orbital @ Alexandra Palace, London.
Photos © E. Gabriel Edvy/Blackswitch Labs.
© Ayisha Khan.